I've now watched this movie a total of three times.
Once by myself, once with my other half, and lastly with guests who seemed to
like the idea of a zombie romantic comedy. The first time I watched it I
wondered why it had taken me so long to watch such a piece of sheer cinematic
genius and immediately declared it my new favourite movie. The second, I enjoyed
it immensely, but agreed with my boyfriend that the ending seemed a little
rushed and lacklustre, and the third time I fell asleep. Don't get me wrong,
perhaps the fact that I had worked all day and I watched the movie at 2am was a
contributing factor, but this movie definitely fades each time you watch it.
Unlike Girls Just Want to Have Fun, which I have seen approximately 834,768
times. Who knew Helen Hunt was once so cool?
 As most romantic comedies go, zombie or not, boy A is desperately in love with
girl B, in this case, Johnny Dingle is head over heels for Missy McCloud and has
been ever since the first grade. However, Missy has a boyfriend named Buck who
is handsome, popular, captain of the football team, completely boring and
massively predictable. When Missy and Buck break up, Johnny sees this as the
perfect opportunity to snatch up the girl of his dreams. Little does he know
that he won't live to see the next morning.
Johnny's plan to ask Missy to the prom after class fails when Buck sweet talks
his way back into Missy's good books. Desperate times call for desperate
measures, and Johnny convinces his friend Eddie to help him stage a robbery at
the convenience store where Missy works. Johnny dashes in, saves the girl and is
the hero. Foolproof right? Johnny's scheme backfires when a real burglar shows
up and shoots him as he attempts to save Missy. As he sits against the counter
dying, Johnny asks Missy to the prom. Bewildered, she accepts. Giving the thumbs
up to Eddie, Johnny dies.
But what's a small inconvenience like death to a man with the date of a
lifetime? Johnny intends to go to prom with Missy, even if he has to crawl from
the grave - so that's exactly what he does, and that's where the trouble starts.
Johnny finds out that being dead is a real social no-no back at school, and he's
now more unpopular than ever. Missy won't talk to him, and Buck doesn't take too
lightly to his girlfriend hanging out with the dead kid. But Johnny finally
manages to get Missy to agree to a movie, and the two of them have a great time,
until Johnny's ear falls off.
Frantic, he heads to see doctor Bronson. He finds out that like all dead things,
he is decaying. Leaving a skin sample with the doc, he heads out to see an old
woman whose husband came back from the dead twenty years prior, she informs him
that unless he starts to eat the flesh of the living, he won't live to see prom.
Johnny doesn't want to eat anyone, but he really wants to go to prom, so when
Buck's meathead friend Chuck gets in a nasty accident with an axe, Johnny makes
the best of a bad situation.
Even though Missy thinks its sweet that Johnny ate Chuck for her, her father,
the towns sheriff, won't let her go to the prom with the undead, a group of
townspeople led by Chucks father want him dead - or deader, Dr Bronson has
discovered he can make a fortune off Johnny's zombie flesh and his mother has
started raiding the morgue and kidnapping small children from the supermarket in
case Johnny feels like a snack.
Things aren't going to well for Johnny, and all he wants is one dance with the
beautiful Missy, but he's getting hungrier and weaker. Can he make it to prom
without eating someone else?
I think this was one of the most unique and bizarre high school teen movies that
I have ever seen and everything up until the last 15 minutes or so seemed
perfect. I really liked the fact that being dead made Johnny unpopular at school
and everyone just treated him like that kid who smells as opposed to the living
dead. The characters of Johnny's parents and Dr Bronson were fantastic and
really made this movie even stranger than it already was. I guess true love
really does prevail, even from beyond the grave.
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Year:
1993
